Chloropicrin is commonly employed as an agricultural fumigant and in other applications. Conventional methods of chloropicrin production are inefficient, wasteful and unduly expensive. The production process generates a brine waste stream featuring a concentration of approximately 25% sodium chloride and a total organic carbon level (TOC) of approximately 100 ppm. Not only must the brine waste stream be disposed of, a fresh supply of sodium chloride must be acquired and used for continued manufacture of chloropicrin.
Ideally, it would be desirable to recover sodium chloride from the brine waste stream in order to use it for the continued production of chloropicrin. However, the presence of aliphatic hydrocarbons in the waste stream has, until now, prevented the successful recovery of NaCl from the brine. The high level of such compounds present in the stream interferes with standard membrane and diaphragm-type chlor-alkali electrolytic cells and does not allow such cells to successfully process sodium chloride in the brine solution.